Shell House (31 page)

       
She followed him but slowed down her pace, giving herself time to think about whether or not she should go inside with him. She continued regardless, telling herself she was being ridiculous.

       
“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said as he reached the porch that led to the back door, “but I’m a bit mucky. I’ve been gardening early this morning, since it was light.”

       
“It’s fine. I shouldn’t have turned up unannounced.” If she didn’t know any better she would have thought he was a retired version of the village idiot. His voice with its strong Norfolk accent carried a heavy monotone making each word he spoke thud to the ground.

       
“It’s a beautiful garden.” She peered round while she waited for him to take off his Wellington boots. She was glad that he no longer lived at the address where the children had died; she didn’t think she could have handled going in there if he had. It was hard enough entering this house knowing it was where Ellen had lived for many years.

       
“It’s bloody hard graft and I’m getting too old for it now. Do you want a cup of tea?”

       
“Yes, thank you. That would be nice.” She followed him into his kitchen.

       
She could see from her first glance he was a full time gardener; the house was cluttered and neglected.

       
“Excuse the mess. Don’t get much time for cleaning.”

       
“You can’t do it all. I should think your garden takes up every spare minute and then I should imagine you’re exhausted,” Rebecca said, feeling extremely uncomfortable, “… what with all the vegetable patches and flower beds. It won’t look after itself, will it?”

       
He looked at her as he warmed the teapot with the first of the boiling water.

       
“Don’t stand on ceremony.” He nodded for her to take a seat at the kitchen table, which appeared to be creaking under the clutter of paperwork and books.

       
Rebecca pulled out a chair, aware she was rambling and wondered what she was so nervous about. She was fifty five years old and yet she felt like a teenager again.

       
“I suppose you want to talk about Ellen?” John sighed as he poured the tea into two small china cups with mismatching saucers which he’d taken from the dresser behind him.

       
“Yes and no. I don’t want to bombard you with questions if that’s what you’re worried about?”

       
“There’s not much that worries me anymore.”

       
She waited for him to add something else − he seemed to have paused mid sentence − but he just continued to sip his tea.

       
Rebecca suddenly began to wonder what she was doing there. All the things she had wanted to say seemed pointless now, disappearing into the atmosphere like the steam from their tea.

     
  She’d wanted to tell him she didn’t hold any animosity toward him and that she understood how utterly devastating it must have been for him. But all these things seemed patronizing and pompous in her head now.

       
“I didn’t know, if that’s what you’re wondering?”

       
She looked up from her tea, slightly startled by his sudden outburst. “It must have been a terrible shock for you. Especially finding out she’d been ill for all those years.”

       
“Oh I knew she weren’t right, don’t get me wrong. You can’t be married to someone for all those years and not know.”

       
“You don’t have to explain things to me. I’m not here to pry.”

       
He waved her comment off with his hand. “I’ve got nothing to hide my dear.”

       
“Yes, but it’s actually none of my business.”

       
He carried on as though he hadn’t heard her. “She was always trying to hurt herself. You know? Cutting her arms and legs or overdosing on some sort of medicine she’d brought from the chemist. She seemed to know just how much to take so as not to kill herself. Sometimes I wished she had done.”

       
Rebecca didn’t really know how to respond to what he was saying so she decided it was best to keep quiet and listen.

       
“That’s an awful thing to say about your wife isn’t it?”

       
Rebecca shook her head, stirring her tea to distract from how uncomfortable she felt.

       
“I think that’s why she had so many miscarriages.” He looked her straight in the eye as though he was waiting for a response but then he continued. “I never ever thought she did it to kill the babies, I just thought she took something for her morning sickness and didn’t realise what she was doing.”

       
“And that could possibly be what happened.” Rebecca was trying to make him feel better knowing that her words held no truth and sounded useless when she said them.

       
“I never ever thought she’d harm our children though. You might think I was stupid to not see it but I didn’t.”

       
“We don’t see things when we love someone. We don’t want to believe it.”

       
“I stopped loving her years ago.”

       
He was silent after that and Rebecca lowered her head and stared at her tea cup, suddenly feeling very sad. Two people who had lived in the same house for all those years had managed to lock themselves in their own separate prisons, feeling unable to break free from one another. And because of it all Ellen had made her a prisoner also; had changed the course of her entire life because no one noticed Ellen was ill. She thought now of the still births and the miscarriages Ellen most certainly caused and it made her feel bereft for what she could have had if she’d been able to have a normal life. She’d never allowed herself to think about ever having a proper relationship and children because she’d always believed she was a child killer and couldn’t trust herself. Even knowing in herself that she would never hurt another soul, there was still that doubt there because of the label she’d grown up with. It made her feel an immense hatred towards Ellen that she knew she must deal with before it ate her away.

       
John poured more tea from the pot. “My garden was my sanctuary; that’s what kept me sane all those years. She stayed in the house and I lived outside. Funny really, would have just been easier to leave her.”

       
“I’m sure it didn’t feel like the easier option at the time.”

       
“I must have loved her I suppose, in some sort of way. I pitied her more than anything and I stayed because in those days when you got married that was it. You’d made your bed and you’d got to lie in it.”

       
“She must have been a very troubled lady.”

       
“Troubled is not the word for it my dear. She had one of those split personalities, some sort of disorder, as the police told me. I can’t remember what they called it now. She had something wrong with her anyway. She could be the most wonderful, kind-hearted person in the world and then it’d be like the devil had possessed her. I thought that was how all women were when I was younger and then you learn different.”

       
“They said at the appeal she had bipolar.”

       
“That’s it. I couldn’t remember the name, some such rubbish those psychologists have come up with I shouldn’t wonder.” He sighed. “I think that’s why she got the cancer in the end. Something was eating away at her for years.”

       
“How are you managing here on your own?” Rebecca tried to change the subject, not wanting to talk about Ellen anymore.

       
He looked at her for a moment as though he were trying to work out if she was being serious and then he let out a laugh. “I’ve been looking after myself for years. I hate to say it but it’s a blessed relief.”

       
Rebecca nodded, finding it bizarre that all the things she’d planned to say seemed insignificant and pointless. She wondered if perhaps she’d just needed to see him, reach out to him in some way.

       
They left the subject there and talked some more about the garden and then Rebecca decided it was time for her to go home and she got up from the table to leave.

       
“Thank you for the tea.”

       
He stopped her on the way out of the door. “I’m sorry about what happened. What Ellen did to you.”

       
Rebecca stopped and looked at his tired face, suddenly feeling overwhelmed when she realised there were tears in his kind blue eyes. “Please don’t.” She grabbed his arms. “It really wasn’t your fault.”

       
“I am so very sorry.” His words tumbled out in a sob and Rebecca pulled him towards her and embraced him.

       
After a few moments he patted her back and moved away, not being used to too much human contact.

       
“I’m being a silly old fool.”

       
“No you’re not.” Rebecca wiped the tears which had escaped down her own face. “Can I come and see you again?”

       
“Of course you can my dear. Door’s always open. I might come and see that shell museum of yours when it’s up and running.”

       
“You would be very welcome.” Rebecca patted his hand and left him to his gardening.

        She put on her sunglasses and cap and plodded down the steep hill to the sea front, pausing to take in the bracing salty air. She walked towards the benches, suddenly remembering what Nancy had said about Harry’s seat and how he liked to sit and look over the sea.

       
She strolled slowly passed them now trying to guess which one he’d earmarked as his. Then she spotted the plaque with her mother’s name engraved on it; this was unmistakably his bench.

       
It caused her heart to beat a little faster as she felt herself fill up with pride that this was her mother and there was a bench dedicated to her. Underneath her mother’s name the plaque read
“Emma’s favourite lookout”.

       
She sat down on the bench, feeling her freedom properly for the first time since the appeal. She stared across the sea as far into the distance as she could until the sky seemed to merge into the ocean. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to imagine Harry sat on the bench with her.

       
The wind picked up and she raised her face to the sun, letting the cool air ruffle her hair. She was just about to get up and make her way home when she felt the weight of someone sitting down next to her, but when she opened her eyes there was no one there. She felt Harry’s presence so keenly that she was convinced it was him.

       
When she arrived back at the Shell House she wandered through all the rooms as she often did, unable to believe she was there and it was hers. She felt as though she saw the rooms for the first time whenever she looked at them, because they always appeared different to her.

       
Nancy’s comment about the film set flitted across her mind, making her smile as she arrived back downstairs and went into the sitting room. It was the only room she’d described perfectly in her book and it could have easily passed for a set in a museum or a film studio. It was just as it had been before she’d been sent away; even the furniture was the same and positioned in the exact places.

       
She looked around feeling as she always did, like she wasn’t actually there; it was as though she were imagining it all. She tried to take in each area Harry had created and envisioned him sat in his favourite chair by the fire, reading his newspaper and smoking his pipe.

       
She walked carefully over the various rugs that overlapped, leaving patches of bare floorboards, and stood by his desk so she could take in the breathtaking sea view from the window.

       
She’d barely moved or touched anything of Harry’s since she’d been there. It was partly because she didn’t feel ready and she’d also felt it was something she would like to do with Jonathan. She looked across his desk now at the neatness and order of everything; the letter holder, the lamp and a diary were all perfectly in line with the studded leather top.

       
She was suddenly drawn to the plain black book which had a shell placed on the top of it. She perched on the edge of the desk and picked it up, desperately trying to remember the name of it. Then it came to her, as she recalled a memory of her father showing one to her on the beach when she was a child, telling her it was a Saddle Oyster. It had been his favourite type of shell because he liked the feel of it in his hand and it helped him concentrate when he was working.

       
She lifted up the diary now and began flicking through the pages, thinking it was for jotting down appointments and occasions. She turned the pages back to the beginning when she realised it wasn’t what he’d used it for. It was filled with writing dating back to when they’d first got in touch with one another; notes of their telephone conversations and their letters.